Comparative Theology

This Comparative Theology session considered "social salvation" through Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Daoist perspectives on eschatological questions of temporal destiny.The panel stressed that human social and contemplative activities have soteriological effect, changing the timing of the cosmos's unfolding.The session began with interwoven presentations by Katie Mylroie and Andrew Massena reflecting on parables from the Christian Gospel of Matthew.Mylroie situated the reflection in the work of Nancy Pineda-Madrid, who has argued that, although suffering is not itself salvific, salvation must be understood in relation to the historical and concrete sufferings of the poor and marginalized.Mylroie highlighted two parables from the Christian New Testament-the tenants (Mt 21:33-46) and the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31-46)-that treat socio-religious conduct as having soteriological significance.Andrew Massena first exegeted these parables alongside Jewish Rabbinic texts, aiming to demonstrate that the messiah's arrival depends not on the messiah's initiative but upon communal action.He surveyed scholarly literature on Matthew 25:32 ("All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats") to note three interpretations:(1) the classical view, interpretting (ta ethn) as Christians judged for how they treat fellow Christians in need; (2) the universalist interpretation of as all individuals, each judged for how they treat the poor; and (3) the exclusivist reading in which the are "all pagans," judged individually for how they treat Christ's people.However, in Massena's analysis of rabbinic texts on the messiah, we see that the coming of the messiah is contingent on whether the nations live out Torah.For instance, the Bavli Sanhedrin 96b-99a debates whether the messiah's coming is dependent on God's timing or Israel's righteousness, taking the position that it is on Israel to prove itself ready and worthy.In Sanhedrin 98b, the messiah is depicted as a "leper scholar" tying and untying bandages, waiting for the day that Israel returns to the Torah.These rabbinic passages suggest that salvation is not a deus ex machina nor a matter of individual conviction; rather, it is a question of whether and when the collective nation follows Torah so that the messiah might come.Katie Mylroie then considered the parables through the lens of Hindu Advaita nondualist philosophy to stress the relational dynamics between Christian life and salvation.She drew upon the Hindu scholar Anantand Rambachan's effort in A Hindu Theology of Liberation to recover world-affirming aspects of Advaita, like the ontological unity of all life with divine reality or brahman.In Rambachan's reading of the tradition, the world is not unreal but is the intentional creativity of brahman.Therefore, moksha relates closely to Hindu ideals of caring for our common home like